Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).By Greg Stepanich
Time was, and not all that long ago, that the only way South Florida could hear the Verdi Requiem in concert was to wait for the Florida Philharmonic to schedule it or hope that a big touring ensemble would put it on.
This year, there have been two major local performances of this 1874 masterwork: Once in January at a concert by the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, with high-profile soloists including Dolora Zajick, and this week in four concerts by the Master Chorale of South Florida, accompanied by the Lynn Philharmonia.
You wouldn’t expect a student group such as the Lynn conservatory orchestra to be quite as polished as the opera professionals, and by extension, for the performance as a whole to be on that level. And while indeed it wasn’t up to quite the same caliber, Saturday’s performance by the Master Chorale was exciting, engrossing, and completely faithful to Verdi’s compositional aesthetic.
It lacked certain subtleties of interpretation, but in every other important respect this was a strong reading of the Requiem, and its successful performance over the course of the four concerts marks a major advance for South Florida classical music-making.
To begin with, there was the orchestra itself, which was excellent (and augmented by adult professionals). There were two or three noticeable flubs in precisely the places where most orchestras have difficulty: The offstage trumpet passage in the Tuba mirum, which quickly righted itself, and the massed cello opening of the Offertorium, which had the usual intonation problems on the climb up. But here, too, the cellists rapidly unified things when it came time for the main theme.
By and large, this was an orchestra with good string ensemble, strong solo work from winds and brass, and emphatic percussion. It was an orchestra that clearly was familiar with the music, and was able to play with impressive dynamic range, from the hushed tremolandi that introduce the Hostias et preces tibi to the mighty whirlwind of the Dies irae.
Conductor Albert-George Schram led the combined forces of chorale and orchestra with precision and thorough professionalism. Saturday night, sudden shifts in dynamics were right on the money, as were virtually all the entrances and endings, including such tricky moments as the delicate switch to A major from A minor in the opening Requiem movement.
His tempos were largely on the swift side, and in some cases, a little too fast for comfort, particularly in the Confutatis section of the Sequence, when his insistence on driving the central three-note motif forward left his soloist too little time to breathe or give the aria enough impact. The Sanctus, too, while ably handled by the chorus, could have been slightly slower, and there were other, smaller moments when Schram might have been better served by a touch more deliberation.
And yet overall, he led the piece masterfully: His forces knew exactly what he wanted and when to give it to him, and they followed him admirably.
The soloists also did well, in varying degrees. Soprano Amanda Hall, a master’s student at Yale, had the freshest voice of the four, with a nice, full sound in her upper reaches and a warm, communicative approach (particularly in the Recordare and the closing Libera me). Some of her vibrato was rather wide, which was also true of mezzo Christin-Marie Hill.
Hill, a repeat Tanglewood fellow, has an unusual bronze quality to her voice that at its best is quite compelling (Quid sum miser?) and in its shakier moments Saturday night inclined to shrillness. She also snapped off the ends of her initial phrases in the Liber scriptus, no doubt in strict fidelity to the score, but the effect was odd, as though she had been cut off in mid-sentence.
Tenor Scott Ramsay demonstrated a very pleasant, lightly colored voice that had muscle when it needed it, such as in the high B-flat that closes the Ingemisco. He chose a very soft voice for the Hostias, but while that was effective for the text, a little more power would have brought out the tenoristic thrill of the melody better.
Bass Wayne Shepperd has a friendly, baritonal voice that blended well with the other soloists but was somewhat less effective on its own. Without sepulchral tones, it’s hard to make the big pauses Schram called for in the Mors stupebit work all that well, and as mentioned before, the too-fast pace of the Confutatis did Shepperd no favors.
For its part, the Master Chorale (the former Florida Philharmonic chorus) showed the benefits of careful drill in the way the group sang the exact rhythm on the words Qui salvando salvas gratis, as well as the closing triplet on the words Libera me. Its sound was full and hefty, and the balances between men and women were good.
It was also gratifying to hear the chorus sing a piece that gave it so much to do. Many of the big works the chorale has done in recent years have been much bigger workouts for soloists than the chorus, and it’s been hard to gauge exactly how well the group sings. The Verdi Requiem, however, showed that it’s capable of handling difficult fugal writing such as the Te decet hymnus and Sanctus, and that it is able to offer a blemish-free unison line such as in the Agnus Dei.
Saturday’s concert was a crucial one for music development. The Lynn Philharmonia, which just 20 years ago was a string orchestra at the Harid Conservatory, is a skilled, agile assemblage that began this year tackling the Mahler Fifth and next year will take on John Corigliano’s First Symphony, a most demanding piece. True, it got some middle-aged help in the ranks for the Requiem, and its earlier concerts this season have been inconsistent, particularly in the brass sections.
But if you care about classical music in Palm Beach County, you’ll want to consider attending the last performance of the Requiem this afternoon at the Wold Center for the Performing Arts on the Lynn campus. Even five years ago, a performance of this work by student and community forces here would have been hard to imagine – Brahms or Faure, yes, but Verdi, no.
Now, however, ambition for the arts here has been joined by serious accomplishment, and audience members today can see a chorale that has managed to remain standing for almost a decade despite the loss of the orchestra that originated it, and a symphonic ensemble that increasingly is providing fine training for its student members, as well as more satisfying concerts for its auditors.
This Verdi Requiem series is nothing short of a milestone, whatever its faults, and I feel certain the Lynn and Master Chorale communities will look back on these performances a few years hence and see that they marked the beginning of a newer, bigger era.
The Verdi Requiem will be performed at 4 p.m. today at the Wold Center on the Lynn University campus. Tickets: $35-$50. Call 237-9000 for more information.